Suggesting actions for evaluating user performance in an enterprise social network

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are some examples of systems, methods, and computer program products for suggesting actions for evaluating user performance in a social networking system. In some implementations, textual input of a social media message is processed. The processing can include determining that data of the textual input indicates an evaluation of performance of a user of the social networking system. A prompt can be displayed, requesting submission of information evaluating performance of the user. A performance evaluation record can be generated or updated in a database to store the evaluating information in association with an identification of the user, and an indication of the evaluating information can be shared in a feed of the social networking system.

PRIORITY DATA

This patent document is a continuation of and claims priority toco-pending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/506,480, titled “Suggesting Actions for Evaluating User Performancein an Enterprise Social Network,” by Peda Venkateswarlu Pola, filed Oct.3, 2014, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety andfor all purposes.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material,which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This patent document relates generally to providing services in anon-demand services environment using a database system and, morespecifically, to techniques for identifying evaluative information in aninformation feed of a social network.

BACKGROUND

“Cloud computing” services provide shared resources, software, andinformation to computers and other devices upon request. In cloudcomputing environments, software can be accessible over the Internetrather than installed locally on in-house computer systems. Cloudcomputing typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamicallyscalable and often virtualized resources. Technological details can beabstracted from the users, who no longer have need for expertise in, orcontrol over, the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supportsthem.

Database resources can be provided in a cloud computing context.However, using conventional database management techniques, it isdifficult to know about the activity of other users of a database systemin the cloud or other network. For example, the actions of a particularuser, such as a salesperson, on a database resource may be important tothe user's boss. The user can create a report about what the user hasdone and send it to the boss, but such reports may be inefficient, nottimely, and incomplete. Also, it may be difficult to identify otherusers who might benefit from the information in the report.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only toprovide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosedinventive systems, apparatus, and methods for suggesting actions forevaluating user performance in an enterprise social network. Thesedrawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that may be madeby one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe disclosed implementations.

FIG. 1A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 1A and various possible interconnections between theseelements.

FIG. 1C shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 11 inwhich a performance management platform and an enterprise social networkcan be hosted, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 2A shows a system diagram illustrating an example of architecturalcomponents of an on-demand database service environment 200 according tosome implementations.

FIG. 2B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environmentaccording to some implementations.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a presentation of a social network feed inthe form of a graphical user interface (GUI) as displayed on a computingdevice, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a social network feed in the form of a GUI asdisplayed on a computing device, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a feed item 510 including comments 520 and530 to be published to one or more social network feeds, in accordancewith some implementations.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method600 for suggesting actions for evaluating user performance in anenterprise social network, performed in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method700 for suggesting actions for evaluating user performance in anenterprise social network, performed in accordance with someimplementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Examples of systems, apparatus, and methods according to the disclosedimplementations are described in this section. These examples are beingprovided solely to add context and aid in the understanding of thedisclosed implementations. It will thus be apparent to one skilled inthe art that implementations may be practiced without some or all ofthese specific details. In other instances, certain process/methodoperations, also referred to herein as “blocks,” have not been describedin detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring implementations.Other applications are possible, such that the following examples shouldnot be taken as definitive or limiting either in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in whichare shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Althoughthese implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable oneskilled in the art to practice the disclosed implementations, it isunderstood that these examples are not limiting, such that otherimplementations may be used and changes may be made without departingfrom their spirit and scope. For example, the blocks of methods shownand described herein are not necessarily performed in the orderindicated. It should also be understood that the methods may includemore or fewer blocks than are indicated. In some implementations, blocksdescribed herein as separate blocks may be combined. Conversely, whatmay be described herein as a single block may be implemented in multipleblocks.

Various implementations described or referenced herein are directed todifferent methods, systems, and computer program products for suggestingactions for evaluating user performance in an enterprise social network,such as the non-limiting example of Chatter® provided by salesforce.com,inc. (“Salesforce”).

In some implementations, a performance management platform, such asSalesforce's Work.com®, is also provided for tracking performance ofemployees and providing real-time recognition of their successes andcontributions. Employees may use the platform to recognize colleagueswith custom recognition awards such as badges, thanks, likes, bonuses,stickers, ratings, and the like, to create a positive work environment,motivate high performance, and increase employee morale. In someimplementations, the recognition that employees receive via the platformmay become part of their user profiles and performance summaries,allowing employers to measure employee performance and to identify andreward high-performing employees.

In some implementations, the enterprise social network and theperformance management platform may be implemented in the same databasesystem. In other implementations, they may be implemented in separatedatabase systems. Users of the enterprise social network can beassociated with corresponding accounts on the performance managementplatform.

As an example, in a sales context, a salesperson, Sam, who is anemployee of an organization, may publish a status update to a feed thatindicates progress in a sales opportunity. Another employee, Erin, mayreply to the status update with a comment, such as “great work,” or“good job,” recognizing Sam for his accomplishment.

In this example, when Erin posts a message in the enterprise socialnetwork feed recognizing Sam for an accomplishment, the recognition isalso recorded and attributed to Sam in the performance managementplatform. This may be desirable so that Sam's accomplishments may beofficially recognized and incorporated into the performance measuresthat are compiled using the performance management platform. Otherwise,recognition in the social network might not be reflected in theperformance management platform and taken into account for performanceevaluation purposes.

In some implementations, the comments provided by Erin may or may notcontain language indicating recognition of something that Sam has done.As an example, Erin, in her comment, may be merely providing additionalinformation to help Sam solve the issue that he is working on, and thecomment may contain no indication that Erin is recognizing Sam for anachievement. Various techniques disclosed herein may provide automaticdetection of recognition based on the content of the comments. In thisexample, the recognition may be determined by identifying designatedkeywords, such as “great work,” “amazing,” “awesome,” “good job,” orsimilar words and phrases. One or more pattern recognition processes mayalso be utilized to determine whether a message includes recognition ofsomeone's achievement.

When it is determined that Erin may be recognizing Sam for anaccomplishment or achievement, Erin can be automatically prompted tocreate a performance recognition record in the performance managementplatform. As an example, Erin may be presented with the prompt: “Itlooks like you are recognizing Sam for an achievement. Would you like toadd this as one of his achievements?” By responding to the prompt, Erinmay cause Sam's status update to be included as an achievement for Samon the performance management platform.

In some implementations, performance review reports may also be compiledfor an employee based on the performance recognition records generatedby various users with respect to the employee.

Some but not all of the techniques described or referenced herein areimplemented as part of or in conjunction with a social networkingsystem, also referred to herein as a social network. Social networkingsystems have become a popular way to facilitate communication amongpeople, any of whom can be recognized as users of a social networkingsystem. One example of a social networking system is Chatter®, providedby salesforce.com, inc. of San Francisco, Calif. salesforce.com, inc. isa provider of social networking services, Customer RelationshipManagement (CRM) services and other database management services, any ofwhich can be accessed and used in conjunction with the techniquesdisclosed herein in some implementations. These various services can beprovided in a cloud computing environment, for example, in the contextof a multi-tenant database system. Thus, the disclosed techniques can beimplemented without having to install software locally, that is, oncomputing devices of users interacting with services available throughthe cloud. While the disclosed implementations are often described withreference to Chatter®, those skilled in the art should understand thatthe disclosed techniques are neither limited to Chatter® nor to anyother services and systems provided by salesforce.com, inc. and can beimplemented in the context of various other database systems and/orsocial networking systems such as Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter®,Google+®, Yammer® and Jive® by way of example only.

Some social networking systems can be implemented in various settings,including organizations. For instance, a social networking system can beimplemented to connect users within an enterprise such as a company orbusiness partnership, or a group of users within such an organization.For instance, Chatter® can be used by employee users in a division of abusiness organization to share data, communicate, and collaborate witheach other for various social purposes often involving the business ofthe organization. In the example of a multi-tenant database system, eachorganization or group within the organization can be a respective tenantof the system, as described in greater detail below.

In some social networking systems, users can access one or more socialnetwork feeds, which include information updates presented as items orentries in the feed. Such a feed item can include a single informationupdate or a collection of individual information updates. A feed itemcan include various types of data including character-based data, audiodata, image data and/or video data. A social network feed can bedisplayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device suchas the display of a computing device as described below. The informationupdates can include various social network data from various sources andcan be stored in an on-demand database service environment. In someimplementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus, systems, andcomputer-readable storage media may be configured or designed for use ina multi-tenant database environment.

In some implementations, a social networking system may allow a user tofollow data objects in the form of CRM records such as cases, accounts,or opportunities, in addition to following individual users and groupsof users. The “following” of a record stored in a database, as describedin greater detail below, allows a user to track the progress of thatrecord when the user is subscribed to the record. Updates to the record,also referred to herein as changes to the record, are one type ofinformation update that can occur and be noted on a social network feedsuch as a record feed or a news feed of a user subscribed to the record.Examples of record updates include field changes in the record, updatesto the status of a record, as well as the creation of the record itself.Some records are publicly accessible, such that any user can follow therecord, while other records are private, for which appropriate securityclearance/permissions are a prerequisite to a user following the record.

Information updates can include various types of updates, which may ormay not be linked with a particular record. For example, informationupdates can be social media messages submitted by a user or canotherwise be generated in response to user actions or in response toevents. Examples of social media messages include: posts, comments,indications of a user's personal preferences such as “likes” and“dislikes”, updates to a user's status, uploaded files, anduser-submitted hyperlinks to social network data or other network datasuch as various documents and/or web pages on the Internet. Posts caninclude alpha-numeric or other character-based user inputs such aswords, phrases, statements, questions, emotional expressions, and/orsymbols. Comments generally refer to responses to posts or to otherinformation updates, such as words, phrases, statements, answers,questions, and reactionary emotional expressions and/or symbols.Multimedia data can be included in, linked with, or attached to a postor comment. For example, a post can include textual statements incombination with a JPEG image or animated image. A like or dislike canbe submitted in response to a particular post or comment. Examples ofuploaded files include presentations, documents, multimedia files, andthe like.

Users can follow a record by subscribing to the record, as mentionedabove. Users can also follow other entities such as other types of dataobjects, other users, and groups of users. Feed tracked updatesregarding such entities are one type of information update that can bereceived and included in the user's news feed. Any number of users canfollow a particular entity and thus view information updates pertainingto that entity on the users' respective news feeds. In some socialnetworks, users may follow each other by establishing connections witheach other, sometimes referred to as “friending” one another. Byestablishing such a connection, one user may be able to see informationgenerated by, generated about, or otherwise associated with anotheruser. For instance, a first user may be able to see information postedby a second user to the second user's personal social network page. Oneimplementation of such a personal social network page is a user'sprofile page, for example, in the form of a web page representing theuser's profile. In one example, when the first user is following thesecond user, the first user's news feed can receive a post from thesecond user submitted to the second user's profile feed. A user'sprofile feed is also referred to herein as the user's “wall,” which isone example of a social network feed displayed on the user's profilepage.

In some implementations, a social network feed may be specific to agroup of users of a social networking system. For instance, a group ofusers may publish a news feed. Members of the group may view and post tothis group feed in accordance with a permissions configuration for thefeed and the group. Information updates in a group context can alsoinclude changes to group status information.

In some implementations, when data such as posts or comments input fromone or more users are submitted to a social network feed for aparticular user, group, object, or other construct within a socialnetworking system, an email notification or other type of networkcommunication may be transmitted to all users following the user, group,or object in addition to the inclusion of the data as a feed item in oneor more feeds, such as a user's profile feed, a news feed, or a recordfeed. In some social networking systems, the occurrence of such anotification is limited to the first instance of a published input,which may form part of a larger conversation. For instance, anotification may be transmitted for an initial post, but not forcomments on the post. In some other implementations, a separatenotification is transmitted for each such information update.

The term “multi-tenant database system” generally refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and/or software of adatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows of datasuch as feed items for a potentially much greater number of customers.

An example of a “user profile” or “user's profile” is a database objector set of objects configured to store and maintain data about a givenuser of a social networking system and/or database system. The data caninclude general information, such as name, title, phone number, a photo,a biographical summary, and a status, e.g., text describing what theuser is currently doing. As mentioned below, the data can include socialmedia messages created by other users. Where there are multiple tenants,a user is typically associated with a particular tenant. For example, auser could be a salesperson of a company, which is a tenant of thedatabase system that provides a database service.

The term “record” generally refers to a data entity having fields withvalues and stored in database system. An example of a record is aninstance of a data object created by a user of the database service, forexample, in the form of a CRM record about a particular (actual orpotential) business relationship or project. The record can have a datastructure defined by the database service (a standard object) or definedby a user (custom object). For example, a record can be for a businesspartner or potential business partner (e.g., a client, vendor,distributor, etc.) of the user, and can include information describingan entire company, subsidiaries, or contacts at the company. As anotherexample, a record can be a project that the user is working on, such asan opportunity (e.g., a possible sale) with an existing partner, or aproject that the user is trying to get. In one implementation of amulti-tenant database system, each record for the tenants has a uniqueidentifier stored in a common table. A record has data fields that aredefined by the structure of the object (e.g., fields of certain datatypes and purposes). A record can also have custom fields defined by auser. A field can be another record or include links thereto, therebyproviding a parent-child relationship between the records.

The terms “social network feed” and “feed” are used interchangeablyherein and generally refer to a combination (e.g., a list) of feed itemsor entries with various types of information and data. Such feed itemscan be stored and maintained in one or more database tables, e.g., asrows in the table(s), that can be accessed to retrieve relevantinformation to be presented as part of a displayed feed. The term “feeditem” (or feed element) generally refers to an item of information,which can be presented in the feed such as a post submitted by a user.Feed items of information about a user can be presented in a user'sprofile feed of the database, while feed items of information about arecord can be presented in a record feed in the database, by way ofexample. A profile feed and a record feed are examples of differenttypes of social network feeds. A second user following a first user anda record can receive the feed items associated with the first user andthe record for display in the second user's news feed, which is anothertype of social network feed. In some implementations, the feed itemsfrom any number of followed users and records can be combined into asingle social network feed of a particular user.

As examples, a feed item can be a social media message, such as auser-generated post of text data, and a feed tracked update to a recordor profile, such as a change to a field of the record. Feed trackedupdates are described in greater detail below. A feed can be acombination of social media messages and feed tracked updates. Socialmedia messages include text created by a user, and may include otherdata as well. Examples of social media messages include posts, userstatus updates, and comments. Social media messages can be created for auser's profile or for a record. Posts can be created by various users,potentially any user, although some restrictions can be applied. As anexample, posts can be made to a wall section of a user's profile page(which can include a number of recent posts) or a section of a recordthat includes multiple posts. The posts can be organized inchronological order when displayed in a GUI, for instance, on the user'sprofile page, as part of the user's profile feed. In contrast to a post,a user status update changes a status of a user and can be made by thatuser or an administrator. A record can also have a status, the update ofwhich can be provided by an owner of the record or other users havingsuitable write access permissions to the record. The owner can be asingle user, multiple users, or a group.

In some implementations, a comment can be made on any feed item. In someimplementations, comments are organized as a list explicitly tied to aparticular feed tracked update, post, or status update. In someimplementations, comments may not be listed in the first layer (in ahierarchal sense) of feed items, but listed as a second layer branchingfrom a particular first layer feed item.

A “feed tracked update,” also referred to herein as a “feed update,” isone type of information update and generally refers to data representingan event. A feed tracked update can include text generated by thedatabase system in response to the event, to be provided as one or morefeed items for possible inclusion in one or more feeds. In oneimplementation, the data can initially be stored, and then the databasesystem can later use the data to create text for describing the event.Both the data and/or the text can be a feed tracked update, as usedherein. In various implementations, an event can be an update of arecord and/or can be triggered by a specific action by a user. Whichactions trigger an event can be configurable. Which events have feedtracked updates created and which feed updates are sent to which userscan also be configurable. Social media messages and other types of feedupdates can be stored as a field or child object of the record. Forexample, the feed can be stored as a child object of the record.

A “group” is generally a collection of users. In some implementations,the group may be defined as users with a same or similar attribute, orby membership. In some implementations, a “group feed”, also referred toherein as a “group news feed”, includes one or more feed items about anyuser in the group. In some implementations, the group feed also includesinformation updates and other feed items that are about the group as awhole, the group's purpose, the group's description, and group recordsand other objects stored in association with the group. Threads ofinformation updates including group record updates and social mediamessages, such as posts, comments, likes, etc., can define groupconversations and change over time.

An “entity feed” or “record feed” generally refers to a feed of feeditems about a particular record in the database. Such feed items caninclude feed tracked updates about changes to the record and posts madeby users about the record. An entity feed can be composed of any type offeed item. Such a feed can be displayed on a page such as a web pageassociated with the record, e.g., a home page of the record. As usedherein, a “profile feed” or “user's profile feed” generally refers to afeed of feed items about a particular user. In one example, the feeditems for a profile feed include posts and comments that other usersmake about or send to the particular user, and status updates made bythe particular user. Such a profile feed can be displayed on a pageassociated with the particular user. In another example, feed items in aprofile feed could include posts made by the particular user and feedtracked updates initiated based on actions of the particular user.

FIG. 1A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations. Environment 10 may include user systems 12, network 14,database system 16, processor system 17, application platform 18,network interface 20, tenant data storage 22, system data storage 24,program code 26, and process space 28. In other implementations,environment 10 may not have all of these components and/or may haveother components instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

Environment 10 is an environment in which an on-demand database serviceexists. User system 12 may be implemented as any computing device(s) orother data processing apparatus such as a machine or system that is usedby a user to access a database system 16. For example, any of usersystems 12 can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptopcomputer, a work station, and/or a network of such computing devices. Asillustrated in FIG. 1A (and in more detail in FIG. 1B) user systems 12might interact via a network 14 with an on-demand database service,which is implemented in the example of FIG. 1A as database system 16.

An on-demand database service, implemented using system 16 by way ofexample, is a service that is made available to outside users, who donot need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintainingthe database system. Instead, the database system may be available fortheir use when the users need the database system, i.e., on the demandof the users. Some on-demand database services may store informationfrom one or more tenants into tables of a common database image to forma multi-tenant database system (MTS). A database image may include oneor more database objects. A relational database management system(RDBMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval ofinformation against the database object(s). Application platform 18 maybe a framework that allows the applications of system 16 to run, such asthe hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In someimplementations, application platform 18 enables creation, managing andexecuting one or more applications developed by the provider of theon-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand databaseservice via user systems 12, or third party application developersaccessing the on-demand database service via user systems 12.

The users of user systems 12 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 12 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 12 tointeract with system 16, that user system has the capacities allotted tothat salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 16, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level, also called authorization.

Network 14 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 14 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. Network 14 can include a TCP/IP (Transfer ControlProtocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetworkof networks often referred to as the “Internet” with a capital “I.” TheInternet will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it shouldbe understood that the networks that the present implementations mightuse are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implementedprotocol.

User systems 12 might communicate with system 16 using TCP/IP and, at ahigher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 12 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP signals to and from anHTTP server at system 16. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface 20 between system 16 and network 14, butother techniques might be used as well or instead. In someimplementations, the network interface 20 between system 16 and network14 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP requestdistributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requestsevenly over a plurality of servers. At least for users accessing system16, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data;however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

In one implementation, system 16, shown in FIG. 1A, implements aweb-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, inone implementation, system 16 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and fromuser systems 12 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject in tenant data storage 22, however, tenant data typically isarranged in the storage medium(s) of tenant data storage 22 so that dataof one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants sothat one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unlesssuch data is expressly shared. In certain implementations, system 16implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRMapplication. For example, system 16 may provide tenant access tomultiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, including a CRMapplication. User (or third party developer) applications, which may ormay not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform 18,which manages creation, storage of the applications into one or moredatabase objects and executing of the applications in a virtual machinein the process space of the system 16.

One arrangement for elements of system 16 is shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B,including a network interface 20, application platform 18, tenant datastorage 22 for tenant data 23, system data storage 24 for system data 25accessible to system 16 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 26for implementing various functions of system 16, and a process space 28for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, suchas running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 16 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 1A include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 12 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. The term “computing device” is also referred to hereinsimply as a “computer”. User system 12 typically runs an HTTP client,e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 12 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 16 over network 14. Each usersystem 12 also typically includes one or more user input devices, suchas a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or thelike, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) provided bythe browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) ofthe computing device in conjunction with pages, forms, applications andother information provided by system 16 or other systems or servers. Forexample, the user interface device can be used to access data andapplications hosted by system 16, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations aresuitable for use with the Internet, although other networks can be usedinstead of or in addition to the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network,any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one implementation, each user system 12 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 16(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of its components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using processor system 17,which may be implemented to include a central processing unit, which mayinclude an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multipleprocessor units. Non-transitory computer-readable media can haveinstructions stored thereon/in, that can be executed by or used toprogram a computing device to perform any of the methods of theimplementations described herein. Computer program code 26 implementinginstructions for operating and configuring system 16 to intercommunicateand to process web pages, applications and other data and media contentas described herein is preferably downloadable and stored on a harddisk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also bestored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device asis well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable ofstoring program code, such as any type of rotating media includingfloppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk(CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or opticalcards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any other typeof computer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructionsand/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over atransmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, asis well known, or transmitted over any other conventional networkconnection as is well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using anycommunication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet,etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated that computer codefor the disclosed implementations can be realized in any programminglanguage that can be executed on a client system and/or server or serversystem such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language,Java™, JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such asVBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may beused. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to some implementations, each system 16 is configured toprovide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user(client) systems 12 to support the access by user systems 12 as tenantsof system 16. As such, system 16 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to referto a computing device or system, including processing hardware andprocess space(s), an associated storage medium such as a memory deviceor database, and, in some instances, a database application (e.g.,OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also beunderstood that “server system” and “server” are often usedinterchangeably herein. Similarly, the database objects described hereincan be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 1A and various possible interconnections between theseelements. That is, FIG. 1B also illustrates environment 10. However, inFIG. 1B elements of system 16 and various interconnections in someimplementations are further illustrated. FIG. 1B shows that user system12 may include processor system 12A, memory system 12B, input system12C, and output system 12D. FIG. 1B shows network 14 and system 16. FIG.1B also shows that system 16 may include tenant data storage 22, tenantdata 23, system data storage 24, system data 25, User Interface (UI) 30,Application Program Interface (API) 32, PL/SOQL 34, save routines 36,application setup mechanism 38, applications servers 1001-100N, systemprocess space 102, tenant process spaces 104, tenant management processspace 110, tenant storage space 112, user storage 114, and applicationmetadata 116. In other implementations, environment 10 may not have thesame elements as those listed above and/or may have other elementsinstead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 12, network 14, system 16, tenant data storage 22, andsystem data storage 24 were discussed above in FIG. 1A. Regarding usersystem 12, processor system 12A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 12B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 12Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 12D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 1B, system 16 may include a network interface 20 (of FIG. 1A)implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 100, an applicationplatform 18, tenant data storage 22, and system data storage 24. Alsoshown is system process space 102, including individual tenant processspaces 104 and a tenant management process space 110. Each applicationserver 100 may be configured to communicate with tenant data storage 22and the tenant data 23 therein, and system data storage 24 and thesystem data 25 therein to serve requests of user systems 12. The tenantdata 23 might be divided into individual tenant storage spaces 112,which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangementof data. Within each tenant storage space 112, user storage 114 andapplication metadata 116 might be similarly allocated for each user. Forexample, a copy of a user's most recently used (MRU) items might bestored to user storage 114. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entireorganization that is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage space112. A UI 30 provides a user interface and an API 32 provides anapplication programmer interface to system 16 resident processes tousers and/or developers at user systems 12. The tenant data and thesystem data may be stored in various databases, such as one or moreOracle□ databases.

Application platform 18 includes an application setup mechanism 38 thatsupports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage 22by save routines 36 for execution by subscribers as one or more tenantprocess spaces 104 managed by tenant management process 110 for example.Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 thatprovides a programming language style interface extension to API 32. Adetailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations isdiscussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHODAND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA AMULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, issued onJun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety andfor all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one ormore system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 116for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata asan application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 100 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 25 and tenant data 23, via adifferent network connection. For example, one application server 1001might be coupled via the network 14 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 100N-1 might be coupled via a direct network link,and another application server 100N might be coupled by yet a differentnetwork connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between applicationservers 100 and the database system. However, it will be apparent to oneskilled in the art that other transport protocols may be used tooptimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain implementations, each application server 100 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 100. In one implementation, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 100 and the user systems 12 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 100. In one implementation, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 100. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same usercould hit three different application servers 100, and three requestsfrom different users could hit the same application server 100. In thismanner, by way of example, system 16 is multi-tenant, wherein system 16handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data andapplications across disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 16 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 22). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 16 that are allocated atthe tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant-specific data, system 16 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain implementations, user systems 12 (which may be clientsystems) communicate with application servers 100 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 16 that may involvesending one or more queries to tenant data storage 22 and/or system datastorage 24. System 16 (e.g., an application server 100 in system 16)automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or moreSQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. Systemdata storage 24 may generate query plans to access the requested datafrom the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects according to some implementations. It should be understood that“table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each tablegenerally contains one or more data categories logically arranged ascolumns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a tablecontains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields.For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes acustomer with fields for basic contact information such as name,address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe apurchase order, including fields for information such as customer,product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems,standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities might include tables forcase, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, eachcontaining pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word“entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and“table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No.7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASESYSTEM, by Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teachessystems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizingstandard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In certainimplementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored ina single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logicaltables per organization. It is transparent to customers that theirmultiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that theirdata may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers.

FIG. 1C shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 11 inwhich a performance management platform and an enterprise social networkcan be hosted, in accordance with some implementations. Similar to theenvironment depicted in FIG. 1A, environment 11 includes user systems 12and a network 14, as generally described in FIG. 1A. The environment 11includes a first database system 40 that may host the performancemanagement platform and a second database system 50 that may host theenterprise social network, in this example. The database systems 40 and50 may each be implemented with components similar to the system 16 ofFIG. 1A. The user systems 12 of the environment may communicate with theperformance management platform hosted by the first database system 40by, for example, logging into the performance management platformthrough a user interface of a web browser. The user systems 12 maylikewise log in to the enterprise social network of the second databasesystem 50 via a web browser. In some implementations, the enterprisesocial network may be configured to communicate with the performancemanagement platform via the network 14 by using an applicationprogramming interface (API) provided by the performance managementplatform.

FIG. 2A shows a system diagram illustrating an example of architecturalcomponents of an on-demand database service environment 200 according tosome implementations. A client machine located in the cloud 204,generally referring to one or more networks in combination, as describedherein, may communicate with the on-demand database service environmentvia one or more edge routers 208 and 212. A client machine can be any ofthe examples of user systems 12 described above. The edge routers maycommunicate with one or more core switches 220 and 224 via firewall 216.The core switches may communicate with a load balancer 228, which maydistribute server load over different pods, such as the pods 240 and244. The pods 240 and 244, which may each include one or more serversand/or other computing resources, may perform data processing and otheroperations used to provide on-demand services. Communication with thepods may be conducted via pod switches 232 and 236. Components of theon-demand database service environment may communicate with a databasestorage 256 via a database firewall 248 and a database switch 252.

As shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, accessing an on-demand database serviceenvironment may involve communications transmitted among a variety ofdifferent hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demanddatabase service environment 200 is a simplified representation of anactual on-demand database service environment. For example, while onlyone or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, someimplementations of an on-demand database service environment may includeanywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demanddatabase service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS.2A and 2B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 2A and2B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand database serviceenvironment 200 may be implemented on the same physical device or ondifferent hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or acombination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “dataprocessing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used hereinare not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include anyhardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 204 is intended to refer to a data network or plurality ofdata networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located inthe cloud 204 may communicate with the on-demand database serviceenvironment to access services provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. For example, client machines may access theon-demand database service environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/orprocess information.

In some implementations, the edge routers 208 and 212 route packetsbetween the cloud 204 and other components of the on-demand databaseservice environment 200. The edge routers 208 and 212 may employ theBorder Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol ofthe Internet. The edge routers 208 and 212 may maintain a table of IPnetworks or ‘prefixes’, which designate network reachability amongautonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more implementations, the firewall 216 may protect the innercomponents of the on-demand database service environment 200 fromInternet traffic. The firewall 216 may block, permit, or deny access tothe inner components of the on-demand database service environment 200based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 216 may actas one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a statefulfilter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall.

In some implementations, the core switches 220 and 224 are high-capacityswitches that transfer packets within the on-demand database serviceenvironment 200. The core switches 220 and 224 may be configured asnetwork bridges that quickly route data between different componentswithin the on-demand database service environment. In someimplementations, the use of two or more core switches 220 and 224 mayprovide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some implementations, the pods 240 and 244 may perform the core dataprocessing and service functions provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. Each pod may include various types of hardwareand/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architectureis discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 2B.

In some implementations, communication between the pods 240 and 244 maybe conducted via the pod switches 232 and 236. The pod switches 232 and236 may facilitate communication between the pods 240 and 244 and clientmachines located in the cloud 204, for example via core switches 220 and224. Also, the pod switches 232 and 236 may facilitate communicationbetween the pods 240 and 244 and the database storage 256.

In some implementations, the load balancer 228 may distribute workloadbetween the pods 240 and 244. Balancing the on-demand service requestsbetween the pods may assist in improving the use of resources,increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducingoverhead. The load balancer 228 may include multilayer switches toanalyze and forward traffic.

In some implementations, access to the database storage 256 may beguarded by a database firewall 248. The database firewall 248 may act asa computer application firewall operating at the database applicationlayer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 248 may protect thedatabase storage 256 from application attacks such as structure querylanguage (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorizedinformation disclosure.

In some implementations, the database firewall 248 may include a hostusing one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy trafficbefore passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 248 mayinspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content ordatabase requests. The database firewall 248 may work on the SQLapplication level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications'connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well asintercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a databasenetwork or application interface.

In some implementations, communication with the database storage 256 maybe conducted via the database switch 252. The multi-tenant databasestorage 256 may include more than one hardware and/or softwarecomponents for handling database queries. Accordingly, the databaseswitch 252 may direct database queries transmitted by other componentsof the on-demand database service environment (e.g., the pods 240 and244) to the correct components within the database storage 256.

In some implementations, the database storage 256 is an on-demanddatabase system shared by many different organizations. The on-demanddatabase system may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualizedapproach, or any other type of database approach. An on-demand databasesystem is discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B.

FIG. 2B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environmentaccording to some implementations. The pod 244 may be used to renderservices to a user of the on-demand database service environment 200. Insome implementations, each pod may include a variety of servers and/orother systems. The pod 244 includes one or more content batch servers264, content search servers 268, query servers 282, file servers 286,access control system (ACS) servers 280, batch servers 284, and appservers 288. Also, the pod 244 includes database instances 290, quickfile systems (QFS) 292, and indexers 294. In one or moreimplementations, some or all communication between the servers in thepod 244 may be transmitted via the switch 236.

In some implementations, the app servers 288 may include a hardwareand/or software framework dedicated to the execution of procedures(e.g., programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction ofapplications provided by the on-demand database service environment 200via the pod 244. In some implementations, the hardware and/or softwareframework of an app server 288 is configured to execute operations ofthe services described herein, including performance of the blocks ofmethods described with reference to FIGS. 3-13. In alternativeimplementations, two or more app servers 288 may be included andcooperate to perform such methods, or one or more other serversdescribed herein can be configured to perform the disclosed methods.

The content batch servers 264 may handle requests internal to the pod.These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particularcustomer. For example, the content batch servers 264 may handle requestsrelated to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 268 may provide query and indexer functions.For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 268may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demanddatabase service environment.

The file servers 286 may manage requests for information stored in thefile storage 298. The file storage 298 may store information such asdocuments, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requestsfor information using the file servers 286, the image footprint on thedatabase may be reduced.

The query servers 282 may be used to retrieve information from one ormore file systems. For example, the query system 282 may receiverequests for information from the app servers 288 and then transmitinformation queries to the NFS 296 located outside the pod.

The pod 244 may share a database instance 290 configured as amulti-tenant environment in which different organizations share accessto the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 244 maycall upon various hardware and/or software resources. In someimplementations, the ACS servers 280 may control access to data,hardware resources, or software resources.

In some implementations, the batch servers 284 may process batch jobs,which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers284 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers288, to trigger the batch jobs.

In some implementations, the QFS 292 may be an open source file systemavailable from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS mayserve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessinginformation available within the pod 244. The QFS 292 may support somevolume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be groupedtogether into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on aseparate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applicationswhere long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system maycommunicate with one or more content search servers 268 and/or indexers294 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in thenetwork file systems 296 and/or other storage systems.

In some implementations, one or more query servers 282 may communicatewith the NFS 296 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside ofthe pod 244. The NFS 296 may allow servers located in the pod 244 toaccess information to access files over a network in a manner similar tohow local storage is accessed.

In some implementations, queries from the query servers 222 may betransmitted to the NFS 296 via the load balancer 228, which maydistribute resource requests over various resources available in theon-demand database service environment. The NFS 296 may also communicatewith the QFS 292 to update the information stored on the NFS 296 and/orto provide information to the QFS 292 for use by servers located withinthe pod 244.

In some implementations, the pod may include one or more databaseinstances 290. The database instance 290 may transmit information to theQFS 292. When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be availablefor use by servers within the pod 244 without using an additionaldatabase call.

In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to theindexer 294. Indexer 294 may provide an index of information availablein the database 290 and/or QFS 292. The index information may beprovided to file servers 286 and/or the QFS 292.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a presentation of a social network feed inthe form of a graphical user interface (GUI) as displayed on a computingdevice, in accordance with some implementations. As shown, a feed item310 shows that a user has posted a document to the group feed. The text“Bill Bauer has posted the document Competitive Insights” can begenerated by the database system about a record being changed. A feeditem 320 shows a post to the group, along with comments 330 from EllaJohnson, James Saxon, Mary Moore and Bill Bauer.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a social network feed in the form of a GUI asdisplayed on a computing device, in accordance with someimplementations. In this example, the social network feed is in the formof a record feed on a record profile page for the “Opportunity-123K”record stored in a database system. The record feed includes afeed-tracked update, a post, and comments. Feed item 410 shows afeed-tracked update based on the event of submitting a discount forapproval. Other feed items include posts, for example, from Bill Bauer,made to the record and comments, for example, from Erica Law and JakeRapp, submitted in response to the posts.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a feed item 510 including comments 520 and530 to be published to one or more social network feeds, in accordancewith some implementations. FIG. 5 will be described further below withinthe context of FIG. 6.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method600 for suggesting actions for evaluating user performance in anenterprise social network, performed in accordance with someimplementations. In FIG. 6, at block 604, a server of an enterprisesocial network identifies a message configured to be published to a feedof the enterprise social network, such as a social media message in theform of a post to a social networking group or a comment in response toa post. The message may include textual input from a first usercomposing the message at a client machine. The first user may be loggedinto his user account of the enterprise social network while composingthe message.

By way of illustration, in FIG. 5, Frank Leahy is logged into hisenterprise social network user account and is viewing a feed item 510including a post 515 published by Peda Pola describing a problem andPeda's work on the problem. Frank Leahy has submitted a comment 530 inresponse to the post 515 with the text “good catch @Peda Pola *”.Another comment 520 from Jimmy Johnson on the post 515 precedes FrankLeahy's comment 530. Frank Leahy, Jimmy Johnson, and Peda Pola areemployee users of Salesforce and are members of a group named “FilesSync Team”. Peda Pola's initial post 515 was shared with the entiregroup.

In FIG. 6, at block 604, in some implementations, the message identifiedby the server does not include a request by the first user to evaluatethe performance of the second user. In other words, the first usercomposing the message has not made a selection or otherwise indicated anaffirmative intent to create a performance evaluation record when hepublishes the message. The first user may have only intended to composethe message to communicate information to a group, to provide a statusupdate, to provide instructions to another user, or even to praise thesecond user's achievements.

In FIG. 6, at block 608, the server of the enterprise social networkdetermines that the textual input of the message includes informationevaluating a second user associated with the enterprise social network.In some implementations, the server may parse the textual input andidentify text that appears to be evaluating a second user. For example,returning to FIG. 5, Frank Leahy's comment 530 includes the text “goodcatch @Peda Pola *”. The server receiving this message may parse thetext of Frank Leahy's comment and identify the term “good catch” aspotentially evaluative information for Peda Pola.

In some implementations, the server may make the determination that thetextual input of a message includes information evaluating a second userby identifying one or more designated keywords in the textual input. Forexample, the server may determine whether the textual input includeskeywords such as “good job,” “good catch,” “awesome,” “great work,”“amazing,” and the like.

In some implementations, the server may determine that the textual inputof the message includes evaluative information by using patternrecognition algorithms to determine the meaning of the textual input.The pattern recognition algorithms may include one or more rules fordetermining when a text contains evaluative information. An example ofsuch a rule may specify that if a text includes a reference to anotheruser, such as “@Peda Pola”, and contains the keyword “good”, then it isdetermined that the textual input contains evaluative information forthe user Peda Pola. As another example, a rule may utilize regularexpression matching to determine that a textual input includesevaluative information. Another example of a rule may determine thattextual input includes evaluative information when evaluative keywords,such as “good”, “awesome”, “great” comprise at least, say, 10% of thetextual input.

In some implementations, the second user may be associated with a useraccount within the performance management platform and a user accountwithin the enterprise social network. For example, returning to FIG. 5,the user Peda Pola may have an account in the performance managementplatform and an account in the enterprise social network, and the twoaccounts may be associated with one another, such that evaluativeinformation received for Peda Pola's enterprise social network useraccount may be associated with Peda Pola's performance managementplatform user account.

In some other implementations, the performance management platform andthe enterprise social network may be operated by the same serviceprovider or hosted by the same database system. For example, Chatter®provides an enterprise social network that may integrate with Work.com®,which hosts a performance management platform in which users ofWork.com® are associated with performance recognition records for theirwork. In this implementation, when Frank Leahy publishes a commentpertaining to Peda Pola on Chatter®, the contents of the comment may besent to Work.com® to be included in a performance recognition record forPeda Pola.

In other implementations, the performance management platform and theenterprise social network may be operated by different service providersor hosted by different database systems. As an example, SalesforceChatter® could include performance management features that allow usersof Chatter® to create performance evaluation records for other usersdirectly within Chatter®.

In FIG. 6, at block 612, the server of the enterprise social networkprovides data to the client machine for display at the client machine.The data may include a prompt to the first user to include theevaluative information for the second user in a performance evaluationrecord for the second user in the performance management platform. As anexample, returning to FIG. 5, in response to Frank Leahy posting thecomment “good catch @Peda Pola *”, the user interface displays a prompt540 stating: “Sounds like you are recognizing Peda Pola, would you liketo add this as one of his achievements? Yes (or) No Thanks.” Once theserver of the enterprise social network recognizes Frank Leahy's textualinput as potentially containing evaluative information for Peda Pola,the server provides this prompt to remind Frank Leahy to create aperformance evaluation record if the user is intending to recognize PedaPola in this comment of the enterprise social network.

In some implementations, the prompt may be a suggestion to Frank Leahyto create a performance evaluation record in the performance managementplatform. In another implementation, the performance management platformcould be automatically generated in response to the published comment.

In some implementations, the prompt may appear as it does in FIG. 5,superimposed over the feed item. Alternatively, the prompt may appear ina separate window, in a separate tab, in a superimposed lightbox, or ina sidebar of the user interface.

In some implementations, the prompt may be persistently displayed in theuser interface of the enterprise social network, such that the contentsof any feed item may be included in a performance management record. Inother words, rather than appearing when a feed item contains potentiallyevaluative information, the prompt may appear as an option in a sidebar,which the user may select at any time to create a performance managementrecord based on the displayed feed item. In FIG. 5, the “Add to work.comrecognitions” option 550 in the sidebar allows a user to include thecontents of any feed item in a Work.com® recognition record.

In another implementation, the option 550 may appear when the server ofthe enterprise social network determines that the feed item containspotentially evaluative information, rather than displaying the prompt540 superimposed on the feed item. In yet another implementation, theoption 550 may be persistently displayed and the prompt 540 may bedisplayed when the feed item contains evaluative information.

In FIG. 6, at block 616, the server of the enterprise social networkreceives a first request from the client machine in response to theprompt displayed at the client machine. The first request may be arequest to create or provide a performance evaluation record for thesecond user as prompted, and the first request may include theinformation from the textual input evaluating the second user. As anexample, returning to FIG. 5, Frank Leahy may select “Yes” in responseto the prompt 540 or select the “Add to work.com recognitions” option550. In response to Frank Leahy's selection, the client machine maygenerate a request to be transmitted to the enterprise social network.This request may include a request to create a performance evaluationrecord for Peda Pola in Work.com®, and the request may include theevaluative information provided by Frank Leahy: “good catch @Peda Pola*.”

In some implementations, the first request may also include contextualinformation from the feed related to the evaluative information. Thecontextual information may include the feed item that the evaluativeinformation was a part of, any comments associated with the feed item,any files attached to the feed item, any tasks related to the feed item,or any information from other related feed items. For example, in FIG.5, the request back to the server may also include the informationdisplayed in feed item 510, which may include Peda Pola's initial postand the associated comments.

In FIG. 6, at block 620, the server of the enterprise social networktransmits to the first server a second request to create or update aperformance evaluation record in the database system hosting theperformance management platform. The performance evaluation record maybe created or updated based on the evaluative information provided bythe first user in the enterprise social network.

In the example of FIG. 5, the Chatter® server may then transmit arequest to a Work.com® server to create a Work.com® recognition recordfor Peda Pola based on Frank Leahy's comment and any other contextualinformation for the comment. Work.com® may include a published set ofAPI's that allows applications like Chatter® to cause recognitionrecords to be created within Work.com® for designated users. Peda Pola'sChatter® account may be associated with his Work.com® account, so thatthe server of the enterprise social network may determine whichWork.com® account should be associated with the new or updatedrecognition record. In the example where Chatter® and Work.com® arehosted within the same database system, this request may be handledinternally within the database system.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of an example of a computer implemented method700 for suggesting actions for evaluating user performance in anenterprise social network, performed in accordance with someimplementations.

In FIG. 7, at block 702, a client machine in communication with a firstdatabase system and a second database system receives textual inputincluding a message to be published to a feed. As an example, a user ofthe enterprise social network may have composed a post or a comment andrequested that it be published.

In FIG. 7, at block 704, the second database system hosting anenterprise social network receives the message to published in a feed ofthe enterprise social network, as generally described in block 604 ofFIG. 6. In FIG. 7, at block 708, the second database system determinesthat the textual input includes evaluative information, as generallydescribed in block 608 of FIG. 6. In FIG. 7, at block 712, the clientmachine displays a prompt to create a performance evaluation recordcontaining the evaluative information, as generally described in block612 of FIG. 6. In FIG. 7, at block 716, the second database systemreceives a request from the client machine to create a performanceevaluation record, as generally described in block 616 of FIG. 6. InFIG. 7, at block 720, the first database system hosting a performancemanagement platform creates a performance evaluation record based on theevaluative information provided by the first user in the receivedtextual input, as generally described in block 620 of FIG. 6.

In FIG. 7, at block 724, the first database system receives a requestfor performance evaluation records associated with the second user.Returning to the example of FIG. 5, after the performance evaluationrecord has been created for Peda Pola within the Work.com® system, PedaPola's supervisor may login to Work.com® and submit a request for all ofPeda Pola's performance evaluation records. The Work.com® system mayprovide a mechanism for generating a performance review report for PedaPola. The report may be a quarterly report or a yearly report, or it maybe generated with any range of dates as requested by the user.

In FIG. 7, at block 728, the first database system provides therequested performance evaluation records. In the example of FIG. 5, theperformance review report generated by the Work.com® system may includethe performance evaluation records generated by various users for PedaPola, including the record generated by Frank Leahy in response to thecomment 530 he posted in Chatter®.

The specific details of the specific aspects of implementationsdisclosed herein may be combined in any suitable manner withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the disclosed implementations.However, other implementations may be directed to specificimplementations relating to each individual aspect, or specificcombinations of these individual aspects.

While the disclosed examples are often described herein with referenceto an implementation in which an on-demand database service environmentis implemented in a system having an application server providing afront end for an on-demand database service capable of supportingmultiple tenants, the present implementations are not limited tomulti-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers.Implementations may be practiced using other database architectures,i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scopeof the implementations claimed.

It should be understood that some of the disclosed implementations canbe embodied in the form of control logic using hardware and/or usingcomputer software in a modular or integrated manner. Other ways and/ormethods are possible using hardware and a combination of hardware andsoftware.

Any of the software components or functions described in thisapplication may be implemented as software code to be executed by aprocessor using any suitable computer language such as, for example,Java, C++ or Perl using, for example, conventional or object-orientedtechniques. The software code may be stored as a series of instructionsor commands on a computer-readable medium for storage and/ortransmission, suitable media include random access memory (RAM), a readonly memory (ROM), a magnetic medium such as a hard-drive or a floppydisk, or an optical medium such as a compact disk (CD) or DVD (digitalversatile disk), flash memory, and the like. The computer-readablemedium may be any combination of such storage or transmission devices.Computer-readable media encoded with the software/program code may bepackaged with a compatible device or provided separately from otherdevices (e.g., via Internet download). Any such computer-readable mediummay reside on or within a single computing device or an entire computersystem, and may be among other computer-readable media within a systemor network. A computer system, or other computing device, may include amonitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any of theresults mentioned herein to a user.

While various implementations have been described herein, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present applicationshould not be limited by any of the implementations described herein,but should be defined only in accordance with the following andlater-submitted claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a database systemimplemented with a server system comprising one or more processorsconfigured to cause: storing textual input of a social media message asa first one or more data objects in a database, the social media messagehaving been received from a client machine associated with a first oneof a plurality of users; processing the textual input, the processing ofthe textual input including: parsing data of the textual input,determining that the parsed data of the textual input includes areference to a second one of the users by at least recognizing, withinthe parsed data of the textual input, a segment of text that includesboth a particular textual character and an identifier of the seconduser, and determining, by at least identifying one or more evaluativekeywords in the parsed data of the textual input, that the parsed dataof the textual input includes evaluative information indicating anevaluation of performance of the second user; responsive to thedeterminations, transmitting prompt data to the client machine, theprompt data configured to be processed by the client machine to cause aprompt to be displayed at the client machine, the prompt indicatingavailability of a record input request; and responsive to receiving therecord input request from the client machine: creating or updating aperformance evaluation record as a second one or more data objects inthe database to store the evaluative information in association withuser identification data identifying the second user, and sharing thetextual input as feed item data in a feed item of a feed of the databasesystem.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the record input requestidentifies contextual information from the feed related to theevaluative information, and wherein the performance evaluation record iscreated or updated to further store the contextual information.
 3. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein the social media message includes a commentregarding a particular post of the feed, and wherein the contextualinformation includes feed item information of the particular post or ofone or more comments regarding the particular post.
 4. The system ofclaim 1, the second user being an employee of an organization, and theperformance evaluation record identifying the organization.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the second user is associated with acorresponding user account in a performance management platform, andwherein the performance evaluation record is associated with thecorresponding user account.
 6. The system of claim 1, whereindetermining that the parsed data of the textual input includes theevaluative information includes performing pattern recognition on theparsed data of the textual input.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein thesocial media message does not include a request by the first user toevaluate the performance of the second user.
 8. The system of claim 1,wherein the social media message is a comment regarding a particularpost of the feed, the particular post including a status updateattributed to the second user.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein theprocessing of the textual input further includes determining that atleast a threshold amount of the parsed data of the textual inputconsists of the one or more evaluative keywords.
 10. The system of claim1, the one or more processors further configured to cause: processing asecond user request for performance evaluation records associated withthe second user; and providing the performance evaluation recordsassociated with the second user, the performance evaluation recordsassociated with the second user including the created or updatedperformance evaluation record.
 11. A computer implemented methodcomprising: storing textual input of a social media message as a firstone or more data objects in a database, the social media message havingbeen received from a client machine associated with a first one of aplurality of users; processing the textual input, the processing of thetextual input including: parsing data of the textual input, determiningthat the parsed data of the textual input includes a reference to asecond one of the users by at least recognizing, within the parsed dataof the textual input, a segment of text that includes both a particulartextual character and an identifier of the second user, and determining,by at least identifying one or more evaluative keywords in the parseddata of the textual input, that the parsed data of the textual inputincludes evaluative information indicating an evaluation of performanceof the second user; responsive to the determinations, transmittingprompt data to the client machine, the prompt data configured to beprocessed by the client machine to cause a prompt to be displayed at theclient machine, the prompt indicating availability of a record inputrequest; and responsive to receiving the record input request from theclient machine: creating or updating a performance evaluation record asa second one or more data objects in the database to store theevaluative information in association with user identification dataidentifying the second user, and sharing the textual input as feed itemdata in a feed item of a feed of a database system.
 12. The method ofclaim 11, wherein the record input request identifies contextualinformation from the feed related to the evaluative information, andwherein the performance evaluation record is created or updated tofurther store the contextual information.
 13. The method of claim 11,wherein the social media message does not include a request by the firstuser to evaluate the performance of the second user.
 14. The computerimplemented method of claim 11, further comprising: creating an employeeperformance review report for the second user based, at least in part,on the created or updated performance evaluation record.
 15. Thecomputer implemented method of claim 11, wherein determining that theparsed data of the textual input includes the evaluative informationincludes: determining whether the parsed data of the textual inputindicates recognition of an accomplishment or achievement of the seconduser.
 16. The computer implemented method of claim 11, wherein thesocial media message pertains to a particular feed item of the feed, themethod further comprising: obtaining, from the feed, contextualinformation including information of the particular feed item; andstoring, in the performance evaluation record, the contextualinformation obtained from the feed.
 17. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing computer-readable program code to beexecuted by one or more processors, the program code comprisinginstructions configured to cause: storing textual input of a socialmedia message as a first one or more data objects in a database, thesocial media message having been received from a client machineassociated with a first one of a plurality of users; processing thetextual input, the processing of the textual input including: parsingdata of the textual input, determining that the parsed data of thetextual input includes a reference to a second one of the users by atleast recognizing, within the parsed data of the textual input, asegment of text that includes both a particular textual character and anidentifier of the second user, and determining, by at least identifyingone or more evaluative keywords in the parsed data of the textual input,that the parsed data of the textual input includes evaluativeinformation indicating an evaluation of performance of the second user;responsive to the determinations, transmitting prompt data to the clientmachine, the prompt data configured to be processed by the clientmachine to cause a prompt to be displayed at the client machine, theprompt indicating availability of a record input request; and responsiveto receiving the record input request from the client machine: creatingor updating a performance evaluation record as a second one or more dataobjects in the database to store the evaluative information inassociation with user identification data identifying the second user,and sharing the textual input as feed item data in a feed item of a feedof a database system.
 18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 17, wherein the record input request identifies contextualinformation from the feed related to the evaluative information, andwherein the performance evaluation record is created or updated tofurther store the contextual information.
 19. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the social media messagedoes not include a request by the first user to evaluate the performanceof the second user.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 17, the instructions further configured to cause: processing asecond user request for performance evaluation records associated withthe second user; and providing the performance evaluation recordsassociated with the second user, the performance evaluation recordsassociated with the second user including the created or updatedperformance evaluation record.